Some Lovers Write on Trees
by LadyLilyMalfoy
Summary: As Harry reaches the end of his time at University, it is time to move on in his life and leave things behind. Mycroft doesn't want to be left. Myquerry.


They lie in a post-coital haze of cigarette-smoke, sweat and elation; a tangle of limbs and sheets and fluctuating pulses – a delicious cliché, a fiction neither one is willing to let go of.

Denial weighs down the contentment they have found in one another, but they are too distracted by the ceiling to look down and acknowledge its presence. Not out loud, anyway. They have stretched out their year to its absolute limits. They both know that to stretch it any further would cause irreparable damage. But that doesn't make letting go any easier.

The younger man sighs a full-bodied sigh – his cigarette extinguished minutes ago – and slides down to press his hot cheek against the damp chest of the other, listening to the still fluttering heart beneath his ear as he traces meaningful runes upon the tight skin with one finger. A hand, threaded through his hair, holds him in place with a possessiveness he takes to mean, _'I shall keep you.'_

He feels himself rise on the inhale and, for a lingering moment, they are both suspended there, before the breath is released and they fall together – the atmosphere once again heavy with nicotine.

They have agreed that it shouldn't be said out loud, but he writes it on Harry's ribcage with his fingernail anyway , over and over again in the hope that the words will sink through the flesh and into the place Mycroft wants them kept.

_I love you…I love you…I love you…_

Some lovers write on trees.

He shivers as the sweat cools on his back, his finger raising a trail of goose bumps on Harry's skin. The hand leaves his hair standing on end and the butt of the cigarette is flicked away before the arms close tightly around his body, holding them both together and sharing their dwindling warmth.

Drunk with ardour and desperate to preserve the ever-waning moment, Mycroft closes his eyes against the spinning room, a hand wandering upwards until his fingers close around the small gold ring lying on a chain upon the other's throat – shiny and new with the most sincere of intentions. His own still feels alien on his finger, a little too tight against the bone. He wanders what his brother will say when he returns home…

"When will I see you again?" The words burst unbidden from his lips in a sudden loss of self-restraint.

The body beneath him tightens and goes cold.

He feels his insides crumple and wants to cry, clinging a little tighter, a little more desperate. He shouldn't have asked.

"Mycroft…"

They both hold themselves there on a breath – one waiting to know which path to take them both down, the other waiting to be lead.

He feels Harry soften with a sigh, despite the words that follow are hard with irritation. "Don't spoil it."

_It_…'_It'_ means their final chance to be together. '_It'_ is every moment they have spent revelling in their blissful fantasy. _'It'_ is the knowledge that they are parting, that they will never have this again. '_It'_ is the unspoken admonishment not to spoil the future by clinging to their soon-to-be past.

Mouth set into a miserable pout, Mycroft turns over to bury his face in the warm, safe place in the crook of Harry's neck that he has come to regard as his own.

It was only a matter of minutes before Harry would get up, pull his clothes on and walk permanently out of his life – Mycroft can already feel the impatience seizing up the body which had previously been so soft with affection, and he knows that he is spoiling their last time – just as he knew that he had spoiled their first.

But the rot has already set in and the moment is unsalvageable.

He counts down their final two minutes, twenty-three…two…one seconds , timing it on the heartbeat thumping beneath his palm.

He is pushed away after only the obligatory one.

"Must you go?" It is a pointless question. They both know it.

Harry casts him a brief, reproachful glance before returning his attention to the buttons of his shirt. It takes several attempts before he is able to coordinate the buttons with their respective holes and Mycroft has to fight back to urge to do it for him. "Yes," he says, stepping one foot after the other into his trousers. "Yes, I must go. They'll be here in a couple of hours and I haven't finished packing yet."

The bubble of disappointment in his heart grows too big and too fast to be adequately hidden, and Mycroft has to turn over to hide his face in the warm part of the pillow that still smells of Imperial Leather. Hot tears run down his nose and soak into the material – making his face burn and the air thick.

The mattress beside him sinks and a hand rests cautiously on his side. Harry's voice, "Mycroft, don't." softens in pity and does nothing to alleviate his humiliation. "Don't act as though you thought it would be any different."

Mycroft doesn't resist the hands that turn him over onto his back or push them away as they cup his cheeks, smoothing away his tears with their thumbs. The admittance that he _has_ ardently been clinging to the hope that they _will_, somehow, manage to find a way to continue as they are pushes hard against his teeth.

"I'll miss you," he mumbles, allowing himself to be pulled down into a fierce hug and clinging back with every bit of strength he possesses, fingers clutching at the crumpled shirt.

He feels a kiss being pressed to the crown of his head and knows that it is the last one.

The remain in the moment, suspended on a breath and tracing the words that are too dangerous to say out loud.

Some lovers write on trees, but even that isn't permanent.


End file.
